President Trump: Mimicking Nixon in More Than His Campaign

I put away my political hat for a couple of weeks — has anything interesting happened in the interim? You mean President Trump pressed FBI Director Comey to give him a loyalty pledge? And on multiple occasions, he even pressured the Director to drop the Flynn/Russia investigation, including asking Comey point blank if he was under investigation?

Now there’s a shocker!

Well, not so much for Comey, who kept copious, contemporaneous notes and game-planned every interaction with the president. As the Washington Post put it:

FBI Director James B. Comey prepared extensively for his discussions with President Trump, out of concern that the president was unlikely to respect the legal and ethical boundaries governing their respective roles, according to associates of the now-fired FBI chief.

Trump fired Comey for his announcement about a renewed investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails less than two weeks before the election? The very action that may have led to his election? How considerate of him.

Oh, that was just a subterfuge to cover the decision to fire Comey. So, it must’ve been WaPo or the New York Times that broke that damaging truth. Has the leaker been punished?

You say it was President Trump himself who broke that story in an interview with Lester Holt? But The Donald has been so forceful in his condemnation of leakers. Surely he would be careful to keep his lips sealed regarding important secrets.

Trump boasted to Russian officials — including the very ambassador at the heart of the Flynn scandal and Pete Session’s recusal — about top secret Islamic State secrets obtained from Israel? Secrets so sensitive that they haven’t even been shared with our closest allies? No way!

But at least Trump can heave a sigh of relief now that the self-righteously Boy Scoutish James Comey is out. You mean, the dupe, I mean Deputy Attorney General, who drafted that cover story of a memo was the one who appointed the independent council?

Aha, former FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III is a Republican, so the investigation will be in the administration’s bag, right? (Usually, in independent investigators have been from the other party.)

I know candidate Trump fashioned his presidential campaign in the mold of Richard Nixon, but I didn’t think President Trump would carry that slavish mimicry into his presidency…even to the point of hinting that he might have tapes.